Greene County Sheriff says 135 detention officer positions need to be filled before new jail's completion - KY3

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GREENE COUNTY, Mo. (KY3) - Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott says his office is struggling to hire enough detention officers to run the new jail.

The new jail, which will be located just south of the Springfield-Branson National Airport, is expected to be completed in April or May. Arnott says quite a few positions need to be filled before then.

Right now, there are 85 detention officer openings, but 50 more spots will open up in January. That leaves the sheriff with 135 detention officer positions to fill.

“We’ve got a little bit of a crisis going on trying to get people hired before April or May,” Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott told KY3 on Friday.

Arnott said right now he is not sure what will happen if those positions do not get filled in time. He said the current job market has made things difficult.

“Because of the way the economy is, and wages increasing in our area, I have officers leaving for higher-paying jobs and a civilian type job with less stress and not a 12-hour shift,” Arnott said. “So what’s difficult for us is to compete with that. We’re able to hire, but we also lost some. So it’s almost like neutral for us.”

The sheriff said the current job market is not the only issue, however.

“One of the biggest issues that we have is people passing the background check to work here,” he said. “And so not only do you have a competitive job market, you’re competing with, but you have to have a pretty clean record.”

Arnott said his department has worked rigorously to recruit new employees.

”We’ve done everything from job fairs by going out to outlying cities and visiting with people there,” Arnott said. “We’ve done a really good Facebook campaign market. We’ve done some radio advertisement, and we’re also looking at some television advertisement.”

The sheriff said hiring is certainly more difficult these days, but it is not a new issue.

“Staffing has always been an issue,” he said. “In 14 years, I’ve been full-staffed maybe three times for a small period of time.”

Arnott said 100 positions were added previously. Now, his office sits at 600 total employees.

“So when you have that many employees, you’re going to have people move on for better paying jobs moving out of the area,” he said. “And then people that just get in it and don’t like it. So you’re always going to have attrition. We’ve never ramped up our recruiting as much as we have this last year, and we’ll just have to continue with that process and see who we can get.”

Right now, the jail has 241 detention officers. After the 135 new positions are filled, the new jail will have 376 detention officers.

”Our responsibilities are maintaining the housing units in the jail,” said Cpl. Derek James, a detention officer supervisor. “Housing units are where the inmates live. We make sure the meals are served. We make sure we get them to court on time. And then, if the judge releases them, we make sure we get them out of jail in a timely manner.”

Cpl. James said he is looking forward to the new jail.

“Myself and many others I’ve talked to are very excited for the new facility,” he said. “I believe it’s going to be a safer facility, a more efficient facility. And it’ll be nice to to have just a new building, new paint and a new place to work.”

In order to attract new employees, Sheriff Arnott said he hopes wage increases come down the road. The last increases happened several years ago.

”We’re looking at different incentives,” he said. “We are coming up on budget time with the county commission. So I’m sure the commissioners are going to be doing some consideration for county employees of how they retain and attract employees.”

Arnott said there are still other positions to be filled at the jail as well, including kitchen and cleaning staff.

“It’s a small city,” he said. “We serve 900 meals three times a day. So we have a huge kitchen staff. We have a pharmacy, we have doctors, we have counselors, we have people that take care of sanitation, safety, security, commissary. There are just all kinds of small businesses within the jail itself.”

The current jail was built in 2001 and can house about 700 inmates, but the record high was 960 inmates. The new jail will be able to hold just a bit more than 1,400 inmates.

To report a correction or typo, please email digitalnews@ky3.com

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